Author: Sandra Strauch

Digital tools can be and are useful to scholars in the humanities, like myself, who work closely with various forms of text. I suggest that digital approaches to the field of literature can enhance our current practices greatly. I do understand the reluctance (to rely on data, to let computers “do the work for us”) but I also believe that digital tools do not necessarily replace our traditional analysis, but rather add another layer or dimension to the close-reading we have been taught and use. Continue reading “New Approaches in Digital Humanities – Digital Visualization Tools for Textual Analysis of Fan Fiction”

Social media are important in the Western world, they are a source of information, enable us to interact with other users and to become part of a social exchange that might primarily take place in a virtual environment but can also have wide-reaching consequences for our everyday lives. In this sense, participatory culture is embedded in the social media platform.

Why do I want to talk about fan fiction in an academic context, specifically related to digital humanities? What has a fan fiction archive, filled with non-profit texts produced by fans for fans, to do with academically sanctioned projects? Some scholars might even argue that fan fiction is a sub-cultural phenomenon that lacks originality and exists on the fringes of legality. So what is there to be gained in an analysis of fan fiction archives? I argue that fan fiction functions as a way to re-write and re-think canon storylines, characters, and stereotypes. It is one of the most tangible and legible ways to analyze how fans respond to cultural objects, how they create communities, and social networks in which they can disseminate their views and uses of these objects. Continue reading “Thinking Digital Archives Through Fan Cultures: The Fan Fiction Archive”